It should be appreciated that serial communication may conform to a serial interface protocol, such as Peripheral Component Interconnect (“PCI”), PCI Express (“PCIe”), Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (“SATA”), and fiber channel among other serial interface protocols. Conventionally, a serial bus has signals that propagate across it in conformance with serial interface protocol. Such serial bus may be formed using signal lines, and the signals may be attenuated or otherwise distorted when propagated across a serial bus, such as from a transmitter to a receiver.
Distortion of a signal propagating across a serial bus may negatively impact the ability to conform to a serial interface protocol. A conventional compensation for distortion may be provided by adaptive equalization. Generally, adaptive equalization involves obtaining a serial bus signal and filtering such signal before providing an adaptively equalized signal for output. A transmitter may employ a digital signal which is filtered using analog filters, and the analog output of such filters is subsequently converted back to a digital signal for providing such adaptively equalized output to a receiver.
A limitation of adaptive equalization is that once such adaptive equalization has obtained a relatively steady state status, output of such analog filters continues, which adds delay in propagation of such signals. Additionally, due to differences between serial interface protocols, such as in ranges of frequency of operation, adaptive equalizers may not be able to handle a wide range of different serial interface protocols. In the past, this has meant having to stock a variety of different transmitters with different adaptive equalizers for various applications.